Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a free-form display.
Discussion of the Related Art
With the development of the information society, various demands for display devices for displaying images are on the rise. In the field of display devices, flat panel displays (FPDs), which are thin and light and can cover a large area, have been rapidly replacing cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which are bulky. For example, a variety of flat panel displays have been developed and used, including liquid crystal displays (LCDs), plasma display panels (PDPs), organic light-emitting displays (OLEDs), field-emission display devices (FEDs), electrophoretic displays (EDs), etc.
However, these flat panel display have been developed for large screens with a rectangular display panel for displaying images, and thus, are typically not suitable for displays having specific or free-form shapes. For example, rectangular displays are typically not suitable for displays for wall clocks, wristwatches, and dashboards, for example, which have a variety of shapes like circles, ellipses, or diagonals. To keep up with this consumer demand, free-form displays such as circular, elliptical, or diagonal displays have been under development in recent years.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a rectangular display and a circular display with the same pixel arrangement as the rectangular display according to the related art will be described.
FIG. 1 is a top plan view schematically showing a structure of some area of a related art rectangular display. FIG. 2 is a top plan view showing an edge structure of a circular display with a related art pixel arrangement.
Referring to FIG. 1, a related art display device comprises rectangular unit pixels P arranged in a matrix on a rectangular substrate SUB, with each unit pixel P comprising a plurality of subpixels SP. To generate the primary colors of red, green, and blue to achieve full color, a unit pixel P may include a red subpixel (R), a green subpixel (G), and a blue subpixel (B).
For circular, elliptical or diagonal displays, their outlines are circular, elliptical, or diagonal. A free-form display with a circular, elliptical, or diagonal outline uses the same pixel structure as the related art rectangular display, as illustrated in FIG. 2.
Referring to FIG. 2, the circular display has a round, disc-shaped substrate SUB. Rectangular unit pixels P are arranged in a matrix on the disc-shaped substrate SUB. However, the rectangular unit pixels P are arranged in a step shape alone the circular edge of the substrate. That is, no pixels are placed in between the outermost pixels P of a data display area and the outline of the substrate SUB, which results in a dead zone where no image is displayed. Due to such a dead zone, the stepped outline of a black matrix BM may be visible to the user.
Accordingly, there is a need for development of a free-form display with high picture quality where a step-like pattern caused by such a dead zone is less visible to the user.